


Clockwork Heart

by lynn3737



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Love, Other, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynn3737/pseuds/lynn3737
Summary: And with the death of these great machines had also come the death of magic itself. Through time, as the kingdom had forgotten about these ancient machines, they had also forgotten about the strange magic that had powered them. The magic that had given them sentience. The magic that had once made them the protectors of the land.That kingdom had all but forgotten.Veida had not.
Kudos: 1





	Clockwork Heart

Once there was a kingdom set in the ruins of ancestors long passed from this world. The poor of this kingdom worked with their blood, sweat, and tears to keep the wealthy happy and secure. The wealthy lounged in their luxury, never giving a single thought to those below them. They were nothing more than soot-stained commoners.

The ruins surrounding their kingdom provided a natural barrier. Once, the ruins might have been formidable machines. They must have advanced the Ancestors' lives greatly, for the kingdom to be thriving so well today.

Now, however, the ruins were nothing more than scrap heaps. They were decaying and rusted and provided nothing more than decoration. Some smaller ruins were found scattered throughout the village, set so steadfastly into the ground that the wealthy had given up on attempting to remove them. 

And with the death of these great machines had also come the death of magic itself. Through time, as the kingdom had forgotten about these ancient machines, they had also forgotten about the strange magic that had powered them. The magic that had given them sentience. The magic that had once made them the protectors of the land.

That kingdom had all but forgotten. 

Veida had not. 

The young girl lived with her father in the east of the kingdom, and could often be found in his workshop, watching him tinker with the scraps of metal he sent her out to collect from the junkyards. He was a kind man, his hands covered in rough calluses from years spent working in the shop.

"Veida," her father said to her one day, as she dropped the newest pile of scraps on the worn table. Not junk. No, never junk. "Would you like to create today?"

"Another Guardian?" Veida asked, pulling up a stool to sit beside her father.

"Yes." He took the pile of scrap metal and began to work, arranging each piece in an intricate pattern of bolts and screw and metal plates. 

Veida watched her father, adding her own opinions on the creation here and there. As her father worked, the scrap began to take form. It began to take the shape of the head of a stag, its antlers long and curling.

Veida let out a soft gasp. "It's beautiful, father." 

The statues held no power, as they once might have, but they were beautiful nonetheless. Her father smiled and turned towards his daughter, sweeping a hand over the remainder of the metals and the tools that were laid out haphazardly next to it. "Would you like to build the rest?"

And so Veida did. She pulled on thick leather gloves and pulled down her welder's mask and began the metal puzzle. When she was done, a metal stag stood in the space of the workshop, its elegant body shining with copper, bronze, and steel.

Veida wiped the sweat from her brow as she regarded the stag, triumph swelling in her heart as it called to the metal. Scraps to scraps, Veida supposed.

The stag joined the others in the yard that night, joining the menagerie of animals with long-dead magic coursing through their bolts and screws. 

Perhaps the most impressive was the copper dragon that towered over all the other statues, casting them in its magnificent shadow. It looked down upon their humble home, a Guardian in its own right.

The next morning, a letter arrived. When Veida joined her father in the kitchen to eat breakfast, he was holding a neatly pressed sheet of paper in his hands, an impressive cursive scrawled over the white surface.

Veida stopped in her tracks. If they had received a letter, it must be important.

As her father scanned the letter, his face lit up more and more. He wiped his eyes, smearing oil over the bridge of his nose, blinked, and checked the letter again.

"What's that about, Father?" Veida asked.

Her father looked up and showed her the letter. "The king. He said one of his messengers passed through here this month and saw our creations. The messenger asked who'd created them. The king is requesting that I serve in the palace as his personal blacksmith."

Veida smiled. "That's wonderful, Father. Now we'll never have to want for money again."

And so Veida's father went to the palace in three days' time to begin serving as the king's blacksmith. Veida remained in their small village, taking over her father's work in the shop. She continued to gather scrap metal, but as time went on, Veida turned her craft to making more practical things.

The metal menagerie began to collect rust outside her home, and soon became unpleasant to look at. Deciding that they were of no more use to her, one by one, Veida returned each to the junkyards, until her yard was vacant once more.

It was three years before Veida received a letter from the king again. She'd received letters every month from her father, in the beginning, but even those had come less and less as palace work kept her father busy in the forge.

Veida was welding metal into tools when a knocking sounded at the front of the workshop, insistent and unrelenting. Annoyed that her crafting was interrupted, Veida let her tools fall to the table and snapped her mask up. She opened the door to find a man wearing the kingdom's crest on his chest.

He held a letter out to Veida, his face grim.

Veida skimmed the letter. Once, twice, a third time. No, she thought, It can't be true.

She looked up at the messenger, searching his face. He dipped his chin slightly, confirming everything that she dared not ask.

"I'm sorry, Miss. He fell ill, and there was nothing the palace could do to save him."

"Thank you," she said to the messenger, clutching the letter in calloused her fingers.

"The king would like you to come to the palace as his replacement. There is no one better to replace such a craftsman than his daughter."

Veida's heart felt as if it were coming apart at the gears that made it turn. Winding up and up and up, making her chest fold tight. "Okay," she said at last. 

The least she could do was honor her father's memory.

And so Veida began to work at the palace, filling in her father's place in the forge. She worked day and night, resting little.

Until one night, her heart could take the absence no more. Her heart ached, pulling the coils tighter and tighter, until the air felt too thin to breathe. The letters had been a comfort, allowing her to know that her father was content in the palace and well. Far better than they had ever been in their humble village.

But the complete absence, knowing that her father had been gripped by the cold claws of death-

Veida returned to her work, pounding away at a sheet of metal. The sheet flattened, and Veida was just beginning to shape it when the king called those in the guard and the forge to the throne room.

"There is a dragon," the king said, "burning villages to the west. It is headed across the kingdom, and will soon be found in the east, having razed everything in its path. I need capable, strong men to defeat this dragon before the entire kingdom is subject to its reign of terror."

Immediately, several of the guards stepped forward at the chance to slay the dragon. A chance for glory and riches, no doubt.

"Good, then. I will send a party out tomorrow morning. Return with the dragon's head, and she shall be rewarded."

The party was sent out the next morning, as promised. But they did not return.

Not whole, in any case. All that remained of the prospective heros were charred bones and ashes.

Party after party was sent, and none returned home to tell the tale of the dragon to their families. Veida had enough of the death. There was no need for such brashness.

"King," Veida said one morning, just before another team of young soldiers were to be sent out to hunt the dragon, "Can this not be resolved without further bloodshed?"

The king laughed, "Are you mad, girl? This is a dragon you are speaking of. I need it slayed by my men. Only then will this kingdom be at peace."

Veida bowed and exited the throne room. She had enough of the death that seemed to plague her very existence now. If the king would not listen to her, she would simply have to see to matters herself.

When the dawn was just beginning to grace the horizon the next morning, Veida left the palace and made her way to the fields between the palace and the closest village. The dragon's shadow had loomed over that village the past few days, and would soon be upon the palace itself.

Now, with nothing but the iron will in her heart, Veida stood and watched that shadow grow larger within the clouds, circling as if it were a hawk about to come down on a mouse.

She raised her hand and called out to the dragon. The dragon angled its flight path, huffing with flame and smoke as it drew closer and closer.

No, not smoke.

Steam.

Steam puffed from the dragon's copper and bronze plates as it landed in the field, its iron claws tearing through the soft soil beneath them.

Veida's wail of grief nearly matched the dragon's own as she fell to her knees.

For the dragon was not hewn of scale and flesh and bone. It was hewn of copper and bronze and iron, and burned with the grief Veida herself could not bear to endure if she let it overwhelm her for more than a moment.

Veida stared at the dragon. The creature stared back at her, steam puffing in small clouds from its nostrils as it wailed again. A tick, tick, ticking filled Veida's ears as she reached a hand out to the mechanical dragon's snout. Her fingers shook as the dragon bent its head, allowing her to graze the warm metal.

A Guardian in its own right, Veida thought. Like called to like, she supposed. The magic of the Guardians had never been technology, but rather the love poured into their creation.

Veida's heart only beat because her father had loved so much that he had crafted an entirely new heart for her.

Veida through her arms around the dragon's neck. Her father was dead, yes, but he was not gone. Not truly.

Tears slid down Veida's cheeks and she held the dragon closer. This creature, who'd burned down villages in a fruitless search for its beloved creator.

Fueled by love and grief and steam, the two embraced, acknowledging their love and loss.

In the end, Veida returned to her small village, rejecting the king's offer of rewards. Her mechanical menagerie found its way back to her home, one by one. Veida continued to build the creatures, for now she understood what fueled the Guardians so long ago. They watched over her diligently, as well as the village, for they understood each other deeply. Both Guardian and Veida heart of clockwork, tick, tick, ticking away with time. 

Grief would always strike again, life would fade, but Veida's love for the mechanical menagerie, for those she held dearest to her, would never dull.


End file.
